A Frankford Arsenal dial caliper, which is used to measure cartridge ranges, sits above 7 mm-08, .280 Remington and 7 mm Magnum rounds.

Hunting season must be right around the corner because I've had a flurry of callers asking about hunter safety classes and where they can find a good deal on a deer rifle.

First of all, it's last call for all of the hunter-trapper education sessions because they will end in the next three weeks. The remaining outdoors groups offering classes are the Moraine Sportsmen, Evan City Sportsmen, Saxonburg Sportsmen, Camp Bucoco Scout Camp and the Butler City Hunting and Fishing Club. Contact the clubs or the Game Commission for class schedules.

I've told you about my cousin, Johnny Two-Bucks, who, after years of inactivity in the outdoors pursuits, has found a renewed zeal for the sport.

Well, he called me and announced that he was coming up for the weekend and that he wanted to visit some gun shops. He had received a windfall of sorts and wanted to invest in a hunting rifle.

For the past several years, I have been letting him borrow a rifle from my collection and he thought it was about time to get his own. He wanted it to be used primarily for deer hunting and then have some flexibility for other game animals.

I told him that many rifles would be suitable for his desired objective and we would explore them.

Johnny Two-Bucks had a unique twist on his methodology of firearm acquisition. He asked to see what the cartridge looked like nearly all the time. He had a preconceived notion of what was just right for him by the size and look of the cartridges.

Not wanting to dampen his enthusiasm, I tried to tell him that size doesn't matter and he gave me that "I don't believe you" look.

I pulled out one of my reloading data books and showed him the 7 mm family of cartridges. For a graphic example we placed a 7 mm-08, .280 Remington and a 7 mm-magnum cartridge together with a Frankford Arsenal dial caliper, which is used for measuring ranges in cartridges.

Each of the cartridges was tipped with a bullet that weighed between 139 and 140 grains, which have proven to be highly effective on deer-sized game. In fact, the 7 mm-08 was the rifle that I had on loan to my cousin for the past several deer seasons and has taken at least a half dozen deer.

I was strongly recommending that he find a rifle he would be comfortable with in fit, performance, type of action and potential recoil. I suspected that my cousin was concerned about recoil and that was why he wanted to eyeball the cartridges.

I explained to him that there were many hunting loads that would not rock his shoulder and still do the job. We finally settled on the .270 Remington, 30-06 or the .280 Remington as the rifles that most interested him.

The availability of over-the- counter ammunition made the .270 and the 30-06 the front runners in his rifle search.

I have hunted deer with every caliber that he was reviewing and knew they all could perform admirably in the woods under capable marksmanship. This brought up a whole new dialogue of shot placement and what one could expect with different bullet types.

As I indicated in the experiment with the calipers, there was no significant difference in the bullets of any of the three cartridges. The difference was in the powder charge. However, I did tell him that the .30-06 had the most significant selection of bullet weights to choose from.

I settled him into the mind-set of finding a rifle that he would like esthetically and would be in his price range. Once he found the right rifle, we would work on scopes and the best hunting load for his rifle.

I decided sighting in would be the easy part as we went to four gun shops and checked dozens of rifles.

In the end, he wasn't satisfied with anything and the search continues for Johnny Two-Buck's new rifle.

Jay E. Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.